By EMERSON SUTOW

Seeing familiar faces on campus is important and as the school year starts, Citrus Valley High School’s class of 2022 has started to realize former resident substitute Carl Keiser is back and has his own classroom.

Carl Keiser poses with Paul Beaumont, a previous teacher and now colleague. (BELLA ESPINOZA/Ethic News Photo)

After spending two years teaching moderate-to-severe disabled students in transitional kindergarten through second grade at Cram Elementary School, Keiser is now at Citrus Valley teaching grade 12 English and Integrated Math IA and IIA.

Keiser says, “My Cram students have a very near and dear place in my heart because they were my first.” 

But, he is excited to tackle his first year at Citrus Valley and aims to show his students the true value of what they are learning.

Keiser says the biggest difference from subbing across campus is that he has the same students every day. 

“Seeing them at the beginning of the year and then at the end of the year will be truly rewarding,” Keiser said. 

Since most of his substitute teaching positions last for a month at a time, the amount of time Keiser has spent with his students is more than he normally would have. 

Keiser says, “We are already past a long term sub position, so this is already uncharted territory.”

Paul Beaumont, a world history teacher at Citrus Valley and one of Keiser’s previous teachers, said that Keiser “saw the practicality of what we were teaching and saw how it could be useful.”

He has used what he learned from being a student himself and transformed that into a teaching style that encourages and guides students. 

Beaumont has had a few of his students become teachers and even colleagues, but he especially believes Keiser is ready for the task of teaching. 

¨It’s great to see [Keiser] grow up, mature, and thrive in his profession,” said Beaumont. “He can do whatever he wants, because he’s got the skills.”

Kenneth McGrath, Citrus Valley Advanced Placement Literature and Composition and the Expository Reading and Writing teacher, remembers Keiser as a fantastic student and being super involved in school. 

McGrath said Keiser “is just capable of so much and is just starting to scratch the surface” with this new beginning. 

As he establishes the foundation of his new career, Keiser has taken inspiration from McGrath, Beaumont and Maria Deveau, a fellow Spanish teacher at Citrus Valley. 

With a strong team of supportive teachers, Keiser has readily made the shift from substitute to full-time teaching.